


Sea Change

by corbaccio



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Universe, Fluff, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Porn with Feelings, Scent Marking, Sharing a Bed, refractory periods? we don't need them where we're going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27530167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbaccio/pseuds/corbaccio
Summary: Then, just as suddenly, Armin knew. The answer so obvious that it felt absurd he hadn’t recognised it before now. That irresistible smell, the one that eroded his senses, that clutched at his throat. It was Eren.(In which Armin's heat, an unknown facet of a shifter's biology, is as much a symptom of his relationship with Eren as it is a driving force.)
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Comments: 24
Kudos: 307





	1. spring tide

**Author's Note:**

> a friend asked me to write a/b/o... and i just couldn't commit i'm sorry. but add the flimsiest aetiological veil of "shifter biology" and i'm willing to write about heat cycles, at least. god forgive me. anyway, this is very much an iddy fun thing, so go into it with relaxed expectations.
> 
> smut is in the second chapter if you want to skip (the first is sfw fluff that takes place in their final year of training).

The barracks had been built for practicality rather than for comfort, and so summers tended to be miserably hot and winters freezing. Armin had always felt that any bed under any roof was better than none at all—an unfortunate reality he knew well enough—but nights had been difficult lately. It was the coldest February in five years. Even on bright days your breath would freeze as soon as it left you. Precautions against frostbite and hypothermia, usually only necessary during mountain expeditions, were now employed before and after every venture out of doors that lasted more than half an hour.

That was why it was so strange—so disturbing—to be woken by _heat_. Armin had sweat through his nightshirt, hair clinging to the nape of his neck in a clammy tangle. Nigh steamed in his own bed. Panic cut through the haze of warmth and the remnants of his dreamless sleep: did he have a fever? Armin couldn’t afford to be sick, not with his current track record, and not with graduation only some months away. He was making it by the skin of his teeth as it was. 

The fear made him lucid. His racing thoughts were sound, though, and despite his sweating terror he felt well in himself. It took a moment of confused reasoning for him to realise it was no fever. At least, not his own. Instead it was _Eren_ , tucked in against his back, burning like a banked fire. It wasn’t unusual for them to muddle together during the night, especially in winter, and Eren had always run hot. But this was different. Eren was so warm that it was alarming. Dread gripped Armin a second time, dwarfing his relief in an instant. 

“Eren,” Armin whispered. “Eren, wake up.”

Armin shifted a little to face him, and that was when he felt it. Eren was half-hard in his pyjama bottoms. It made him blush, but the embarrassment was reflexive; this was a natural part of growing up. Armin had woken that way before. Most of the boys in the barracks had, probably, and Armin had more pressing concerns, what with the heat rolling off Eren in tangible waves. 

He drove his elbow into Eren’s side and spoke a little louder this time. “Come on, wake up.” That earned him a sleepy murmur. “Eren!”

Even with the dark, they were close enough that Armin could see the way Eren’s nose wrinkled at his persistence. He slit his eyes open.

“... Armin,” he said. There was none of the usual confusion as when he woke from a nightmare. “What’s wrong?”

Armin stared dumbly at him. Did Eren not feel his own fever? Surely he was too hot not to—that he could be so addled sent another wash of prickling fear down Armin’s spine. “Don’t you feel sick?”

He pulled back to study Eren’s face. The movement lifted the blankets and Eren grumbled at the cold air, but he let Armin go without protest. It was instinctive to press the back of his hand against Eren’s forehead. He leaned into the touch like he’d been starved of contact, eyelashes fluttering dark at his cheek. There was no unnatural colour to them, but still…

“You’ve got a temperature,” Armin said, though that much was obvious.

There was the secondary concern that if Eren was sick, Armin had most likely caught it. But it seemed far less urgent with the unbearable heat currently rising from Eren’s skin, and anyway the damage was done. Armin scooted back on the mattress, sitting up now to think better. A hand reached out to fist in his shirt.

“‘M fine, Armin,” Eren said, his voice still rough with sleep. “Come back to bed.”

“You’re not fine.” The panic swelling in his chest was hot and horrible. “You’re far too warm. You’re burning up! I’m going to get a medic.”

He had one leg swung over the edge of their shared bunk, feeling out the ladder with his toes, when Eren lurched forward. He gripped Armin’s forearm with such strength that it could bruise.

“Don’t go,” he said. His eyes were dark and wild, but more lucid now. “Stay.”

Something in the way he spoke caught Armin’s breath in his throat. Intense as he ever was, but stranger still. And dead serious, Armin thought, as he studied Eren’s sombre face. His nails dug into Armin’s inner elbow. He wasn’t afraid of Eren, never could be—and he wasn’t now—but something had to be wrong. Eren had never acted this way, and Armin had thought he’d seen every possible permutation of emotion Eren had to offer by now.

He looked between Eren and the door, and his own arm braced to the bed rail. He might have been unreasonable at that moment, under the curious veil of this fervour, but Eren was usually amenable to compromise. “... How about we go to the infirmary together, then?” 

This seemed to cinch the deal. It took only a little coaxing for Eren to kick himself free from the tangle of their blankets and follow Armin down the ladder. The floor was frigid enough that Armin hissed, but Eren hardly paid it any notice. He kept so close that he was practically underfoot, and the only thing that kept Armin from saying so—after tripping on Eren's ankles three times—was that the other boys were still asleep.

The world was eerily quiet. The snow fell only outside, of course, but still it set the barracks in a deep pillowing hush. Armin paused at the door to shrug on his coat and pull on his boots. His stomach gave another anxious twist that he had to remind Eren to do the same.

“You’ll make yourself worse if you don’t wrap up,” Armin said, because Eren groused when his coat was thrust into his arms.

“I’m not sick and I’m not cold,” Eren insisted. It was the most normal that he’d sounded since he had woken up, and Armin let that thought loosen his knotted panic.

Eren yanked on his boots, unfolded his coat, and fed his arms through the sleeves. And there he stood with the front hanging open. When Armin stared at him—pointedly, expectantly, as he did up his own jacket—Eren did nothing but stare back. After a short pause and no sign of comprehension on Eren’s face, Armin reached over as if to close the buttons for him. The prospect of such coddling would surely prompt Eren to do it himself.

Or, it should have. Instead Eren just waited and watched as Armin, to his own surprise, closed Eren’s coat up to its collar. Well, why the hell not. Eren was already acting strange enough. It felt only natural then to tug his hood over his head. Despite his unease, Armin had to fight the urge to smile at Eren’s unimpressed look beneath the furred lining.

“It’s been snowing,” he said, which served as both explanation and excuse. He knelt to do up his own bootlaces and Eren followed even that motion, dipping his head as if they were tethered together. 

“Huh. Has it.” Eren spoke in that distracted way that meant he wasn’t really listening. But he was looking at him so intently that Armin could not understand his absent manner; there was not much else to distract him. Eren leaned in close when Armin straightened up, crowding his space again. It felt especially absurd with the added bulk of their coats.

Armin shot him another concerned look. Eren’s face was flushed, and still he could feel how warm he was. There wasn’t much space between them to make that so alarming, but that Armin could sense it through his layers was bad enough. Although, Eren’s eyes were clear and his speech even. He had no trouble staying upright. 

Taken altogether, Armin had no idea whatsoever as to what was wrong with him.

He sighed and slotted his hand into Eren’s. Though he likely didn’t need to, what with the dogged way Eren had been following him thus far. 

“Let’s go,” he said quietly, leading Eren through the door. Now Armin was grateful for the cost-effective nature of the barracks; none of the others woke at the rush of cold as they slipped out into the night. Armin couldn’t explain why he thought so, but it felt better that as few people as possible witnessed this strange, fevered side of Eren.

The snow wasn’t deep, but its frigid bite reached through his boots and his woollen socks. Armin pulled his coat tighter about himself. Eren, on the other hand, reacted hardly at all to the frozen air. He tramped across the grounds with his usual ease. For someone so warm, he was steady on his feet and sure of grip: his hand held tight around Armin’s icy fingers. 

It should have been reassuring. And it was, kind of—it would be truly frightening if Eren had been non-responsive—but still Armin was nearly sick with worry. There had been a nasty flu outbreak in their second year spent working the fields. The circumstances weren’t the same, not at all, but Armin could not help but remember how easily people had died, back then. Sweating and sneezing one morning, struggling to breathe the next. Close quarters, cold weather, and a unit of teenagers with less-than-ideal personal hygiene were not factors that lent themselves well to preventing the spread of infection. Armin’s earlier self-centred fear felt so trivial now with Eren hanging in the balance. 

If Eren was concerned, he did not show it. On their short walk to the main building, the only noise he made was the occasional contented hum; and his face, when Armin glanced back to check it—often, anxious—was relaxed. Dopey, even. Armin could not recall the last time he had been this placid. With the approach of their final term, Eren had become more intense than ever. There were few moments that he wasn’t training, studying, or extolling the virtues of the Survey Corps to any bendable ear. His focus was exceptionable, though not always in a good way. (The outside world had become a rare topic since enlisting, but in the last year Eren had not mentioned it even briefly.) If Armin allowed himself to be honest, and honestly selfish, a part of him thought this new calm was _nice_. But if it were some side-effect of this illness, then Armin would be just as happy to see it gone.  
  
  
  
  
The nurse on duty was dozing when they arrived, someone that Armin recognised but only ever in passing—a dark-haired man with tired eyes and quick, square hands. He led them into the sick bay and checked Eren’s reflexes with an ease born of habit. Armin was quietly grateful that he ignored Eren’s insistence that he was perfectly fine and this was all ridiculous, but then that too must have come easy with years of practice. Even in Armin’s own scant experience, he had noticed that trainees tended to minimise any infirmity unless it was so awful they couldn’t stand.

“You do have a high temperature,” the nurse said, “but you seem alright otherwise. Any other symptoms besides the fever? Headaches, nausea?”

Eren shook his head. Was it worth raising Eren’s unusual behaviour? Armin hovered some feet away, the words sitting on his tongue. Certainly it was a cause for concern—it concerned Armin—but if Eren seemed otherwise well to a medic’s trained eye, he wasn’t sure what to say. What he could say. And he didn’t want to be responsible for any obstruction to Eren’s graduation, not for, what, a greater degree of clinginess? It wasn’t _that_ bad; Eren wasn’t delusional. It was just strange. 

The nurse went on before he had the chance to speak his mind.

“In that case, there’s not much I can do besides recommend you rest. You can stay in the infirmary for the rest of the night—if you do have something, it might very well be infectious. We can check up on you in the morning.” He turned his attention to Armin, standing there still in his coat, and then glanced out the window. The snowstorm had picked up again, whiteness blotting the glass. “You two are bunkmates? You can stay and keep an eye on him, though keep some distance. I doubt anyone else will be coming at this hour, in this weather. If his fever gets worse, come to the office, okay?”

Armin’s _yessir_ was so automatic that he had to resist the urge to salute as he said it. The medic gave his hands a thorough rinsing, advised them both to do the same, and left. The room fell into easy quiet now they were alone. The snow made soft sounds as it hit the window, heavier, the wind casting it sideways. The sick bay was chilly; Armin was glad to have kept his coat on. He felt cold just looking at Eren, who had stripped back down to his nightclothes to allow for his check-up. Still, you wouldn’t think it was winter by his healthy colour. Armin felt translucent by comparison. 

With a hup, Eren swung his legs up on to the cot he’d been sitting on and settled back. His gaze had not left Armin, but now Eren fixed it on him with even greater intensity. “You’re going to stay?”

It didn’t really sound like a question, not with the flat way Eren had said it. But he was looking up at Armin through his eyelashes—curious, tentative, a deliberate sweetness employed for effect. It was a look that Eren rarely wore these days, much more familiar on his boyhood self—as when he used to ask Armin to stay for dinner, and then for the night, and then for as long as possible the next day. At which point Armin’s grandpa would come and collect him. _You’d stay here for weeks if I let you_ , he would say, but the weathered skin around his eyes would soften with his smile.

It had the same impact on Armin six years later. Not that such persuasive tactics were necessary.

“I don’t think anyone would willingly go out into snow like that,” Armin said, shrugging. There was a chair set against the wall, and he pulled it over to Eren’s bedside. “It looks like you won’t have to worry about missing anything tomorrow, even with a fever. Regular drills will be impossible if this storm keeps up.”

Eren just hummed happily. It seemed the most pertinent information that had reached him—and pleased him—was that Armin would be staying in the sick bay. Everything else was unimportant. He sank back against the cot, his eyes already most of the way closed. Now with the reassuring knowledge that Eren wasn’t five minutes from collapse, Armin felt his own tiredness settle back over him. It was not unpleasant, and cocooned in his winter coat he was warm enough that even sitting upright he felt sleep pull at him. He began to do that embarrassing drift-and-jerk, sliding close to sleep and snapping out of it, like a child that had stayed up too late. Too late spent reading with his two best friends beneath the covers, the book barely legible by the milklight of the moon. Breakfast had been nearly impossible after nights like that: Armin would struggle to get the fork to his mouth without nodding off. 

The memory itself was soothing, bright and clear despite the years and trauma since. Armin could feel himself slipping into it, that blurred world half-real and half-imagined, a bubble of home that even now glowed with warmth. A touch shocked him from it. Eren’s hand rested on the back of his own. Armin hadn’t noticed, but at some point in his dozing he had slumped forward on to the cot.

“Oh, sorry,” said Armin, catching his yawn in his fist. It was so forceful that it made his jaw click. 

“What are you doing still in that chair?” Eren asked, like it was the most obvious question in the world and Armin ridiculous for making him ask it. With his own brain most of the way to a dream, it took Armin a moment to arrange the words into sense.

“I guess it’s okay if I take one of other cots,” he murmured, more to himself than to Eren. The nurse _had_ said it was unlikely that anyone else would be coming in at this time, and any bed—even a sterile wire-frame cot such as this—appeared so comfortable that Armin required no further persuasion, internal or otherwise. 

He was rising from his chair when again he was aware of Eren’s hand on his wrist. A delayed reaction, but still the hot familiar grip froze him in place. He was sitting upright now against the headboard, watching Armin with that unabashed stare. 

“Why would you go and do that?”

Really, Armin was much too tired for this new, interrogative Eren. He didn’t try to understand the question this time before he let out an unthinking, “Huh?”

Eren’s voice was low. “I thought you were going to stay with me.”

Now that did make his brain stutter to a stop. Armin said, “I am staying. I just said—”

“No.” Eren shook his head. “Just get up here. There’s plenty of room.”

And that said, he shuffled over to the far edge of the cot as if to illustrate his point. Armin was barely able to contain his surprise, moving his gaze from Eren’s face—guileless as ever—to the scant space on the bed. Yes, there probably _was_ just enough room for Armin to fit. Though only because Armin didn’t take up all that much in the first place. 

He squinted at the mattress. “Are you sure? I’ll crowd you…”

Eren bypassed the question. “You’ll be warm enough this way. You can’t keep your coat on in bed—you look ridiculous all huddled up like that. And you’d freeze over there alone.”

 _Sound logic_ , Armin thought wryly. Eren lifted the covers with an unnecessary flourish. The gesture would have been funny, though Armin was still stuck on Eren’s initial offer, and too exhausted besides to laugh. His silence must have been taken as some cautious indecision, because Eren went on. 

“I’m not sick. But if I was, you’ve already spent hours next to me in the barracks. I don’t think the few hours left until morning are going to make much of a difference.”

They had spent three years sleeping near enough as next to each other; and as children, sharing beds was par for the course. Armin felt any reluctance—of which there wasn’t much to start with—dissolve under Eren’s sheer earnestness. With a sigh, he shelled his coat back on to the seat, loosened his boots, and heaved himself into the narrow space.

“We’ll have to wake up before morning call,” Armin said, but it was a willing concession. And Eren was right, all the same: he was warm enough that the numbing cold in Armin’s bones was already ebbing away. 

Sometimes, a little crowding could be rather pleasant.  
  


* * *

  
The next morning, Eren’s fever—and his need for constant closeness—had abated. He was warm, though not so warm as to warrant much concern. It wasn’t that he looked smug to receive a clean bill of health (Eren was rarely smug to anyone besides Jean), but he didn’t need to say _I told you so_ out loud for Armin to perceive it. 

It was a moot point, anyway. As Armin had predicted, regular training was called off and the day was instead given over to a thorough cleaning of the indoor facilities. Such work could be just as exhausting as physical drills, though Armin knew better than to complain. Others less fortunate than he were assigned to snow clearing duties. Armin’s own group—Annie, Samuel, Mina, Reiner—were allocated the kitchen. Any lingering concerns about Eren’s well-being were put to rest at that, for he put up little protest at being separated. The sorry look and wave he sent Armin’s way would have appeared unremarkable. Armin himself would not have thought it odd (sweet, maybe, demonstrative but not altogether notable) except for the events of last night. 

Eren’s return to form was such a relief that Armin didn’t care, honestly. Nor did he care that his hands smarted from scouring pans so black you wouldn’t know they were ever any other colour. If Eren had been sick, well, at least he was better now. And if he hadn’t been, then he had just been unusually attached. A short-lived loopiness prompted by fever. No harm done. 

Only one other thing gave him pause. Such a small thing, another that would have hardly registered his notice but for Eren’s behaviour the night before. Armin’s groupmates were all people that he got on well enough with. Reiner was a reliable friend to most anyone, and Annie treated Armin with tolerant disinterest, a rare privilege granted to few other trainees. But the two of them were visibly odd around him. Odder still was that even they appeared confused by their own behaviour. Whenever they came within a few feet of him—often, with the kitchen’s cramped quarters—Armin would catch their faces drop and then twist up into some unreadable emotion. After which they would step well out of the way. Reiner had never had any reason to apologise to Armin, and certainly not now, as he passed down the pans from the high shelf beyond his reach. Yet he kept saying sorry.

Finally, Armin was so frayed with it that he had to say something. “You don’t have to keep apologising. You haven’t done anything to apologise _for_.”

Reiner baulked. He nearly dropped a pot lid; it made a rattling _clang_ as he caught it against the countertop. “Oh, yeah. I, I know.” He frowned, and when he spoke again he sounded honestly bemused. “I don’t even know why I’m doing it either. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll let that last one go,” Armin said, smiling, shrugging. But there was no clearing the harried look from Reiner’s face. 

Annie, meanwhile, was giving Armin so wide a berth, and so obviously, that it was laughable. She had stationed herself at the furthest possible oven and was scrubbing it with a singular focus usually reserved for kicking ankles. When her gaze slid in Armin’s direction—apparently against her will—it was intense, scrutinising, as if she were trying to solve an especially difficult riddle. And if Armin dared to meet her stare, she snapped it away in an instant. 

Thank god, then, for Samuel and Mina, who were their perfectly ordinary selves by comparison. No uneasy glances, no grimacing when he passed. After Eren’s episode last night, Armin had had enough of uncharacteristic behaviour, no matter who from. If the entire 104th began to act so strangely, it would have been truly unsettling. 

As the day approached its end, Armin watched Reiner and Annie scurry off at speed. Samuel, by contrast, was taking his time. He nodded at Armin, a basket of dirty towels propped to one thigh.

“Those two could have hung around to finish up, huh,” he said, though he was smiling through his furrowed brow. 

Armin glanced up. Samuel stood next to him now, looking after their retreating groupmates.

“Can I ask you something?” Armin asked.

“Oh, sure. What is it?”

Armin chewed at his cheek. “Do I smell weird to you?”

There was a pause. Samuel adjusted the laundry basket further up his hip, and after another few seconds under Armin’s unrelenting gaze, he ducked his head low. 

“Huh. Not really. I mean, like dishwater maybe.” He offered another smile, this one more tentative. “Uh… why’d you ask?”

Shrugging, Armin tore the gloves from his hands, binned them—hours of hot water and the scouring brush had blistered holes in the fingers—and said, “Yeah. I don't know what I expected. Thanks, though.”


	2. rip tide

Expeditions outside of the walls were much less of a novelty than they used to be, and for Armin in particular, whose shifting experiments mostly took place as far from Wall Maria as possible. He knew the lay of the land very well by now. His job had never been to map the terrain that stretched between Shiganshina and the sea, but Armin had done some willingly, voluntarily, in his free time, scarce though it was. On occasion he had got in trouble for disappearing a little longer than expected, purely because he’d come across a new stream or forest or hillside that required careful study. So Armin would say, anyway. Once, the captain had told him with undisguised irritation, “Dirt is dirt no matter where you are. Keep missing curfew and you’ll be put under watch next time you go wandering.” 

Maybe after three years, he should have been used to it. But some things never lost their magic. Still the sight of the ocean—amorphous, enormous, at times blue or grey or green or shimmering silver—made Armin feel a sense of rare peace. It was so _permanent._ No matter the state of humanity, whether couched within the walls or far beyond his narrow horizon, the ocean would continue to rise at high tide and recede at the low.

A Marleyan engineer had told him that its movement was controlled by the moon, and what an extraordinary concept that was. That something so far removed from the earth could control this force of nature. Armin had not been sceptical, exactly, but keen to see if it were true with his own eyes. Now whenever he was stationed near the coast, he would take the time to record the placement and changing shape of the moon.

He’d accumulated two notebooks’ worth of diagrams and data, though he was neither much of an artist nor a scientist. He hardly slept when camping out this far; every hour he would sneak out from his tent to check the tideline. Sometimes it lapped at the scrubland at the shore’s edge, and the waves surged with such power that they swelled the current of the river that snaked back towards Paradis. And sometimes, the water fell back so far that Armin could have walked for miles to meet it. Indeed, now he had collated and compared enough data that he could make a reliable prediction as to when the ocean would ebb and flow at its extremes. 

Above him, the moon was full and bright in the sky. Every six hours or so the sea went through its cycle, and high tide was due. Armin watched with simple satisfaction as the waves rose over the sand, swallowing more and more with each swell. His footprints vanished beneath its hungry reach. Soon the beach would disappear completely, washed as smooth and blank as a slate beneath the surf. In the early mornings, Armin would often pick his way across its perfect flatness. All sorts surfaced as the water receded: shells like little pockets, others as long and thin as a razor. He’d slipped on masses of stinking seaweed and cut his feet on oysters, their glossy nacre within like silk made stone. 

It was, as always, tempting to stay out here. To watch the sea make its inevitable progress. It was a warm evening, dry and clear; on nights like this you could sleep easy under the open sky. But over the past few days Armin had been feeling—not _awful_ , but out of sorts. More tired than usual, at least, and that was even by his own low standards (weary was his default state). He was sharing a tent with Eren, too, who seemed to sleep very lightly these days. Armin’s constant rising and returning would likely disturb him. 

It was an easy journey back to camp, scarcely five minutes on foot. When he arrived, Armin found the fire put out—recently, smoke still unfurling from its ashes—but there was a lantern burning by the tent’s opening, as if to guide him home. Armin felt himself smile. He caught the lantern’s handle as he lifted the canvas aside. 

Eren was already in his bedroll. Laid out on his front, his head on his folded arms. Not yet asleep: he looked up as the canvas swished shut.

“Finally! I thought I might have lost you out there.”

“Sorry,” Armin said, easy but sincere. He turned to his pack and changed, an awkward shuffling of limbs in the confined space of the tent. Eren watched him with drowsy eyes. “It’s a nice evening out there. So clear that you can see perfectly well without a light, even at this hour. I’d really have to be trying to get lost.”

A soft and knowing laugh. “Of course. And you know this place like the back of your hand anyway.”

Armin smiled down at himself as he closed the buttons of his shirt. It was rare that they went outside the walls together without an explicit and pressing objective. This was a rare opportunity, and so Armin had made the best of it: he had spent most of that afternoon leading Eren around the nearby landscape. His own enthusiasm—remembered some hours later, imagined through Eren’s amused eyes—was almost embarrassing. But then, Eren himself had shone in a way that he seldom did nowadays when Armin had talked through the wildflowers at the coastline, their names new in his own mouth. Sea pinks and fleabane, asters and glasswort. 

_You can eat that one_ , he had said, and crushing the samphire’s fleshy stems in his fingers he had encouraged Eren to try it. His reaction was so hopelessly honest that Armin had wanted to laugh, and to cry, and to kiss his mouth as it twisted at the taste. _Wow_ , Eren had said, _that’s… salty. Like chewing seawater._

Later, Armin had fried great green tangles of it in butter, and they’d eaten that rather than their field rations, and Eren had conceded that it was better that way. Armin hadn’t cared. Armin would have happily eaten sand as long as he did so with Eren, and as long as Eren had that look on his face—a quiet wonder, the brightening awe at some new curiosity like dawn rising behind his eyes.

“I only know it so well because I’m always appointed here. It’s necessary with the new port development, I guess,” Armin said. He slid into his bedroll and turned the lantern down low. “I like being out here.” 

_With you_ , he added, only to himself.

Eren was quiet a moment. Armin was aware—well-aware—that Eren’s own feelings on the outside world were not so simple; that, more often than not, he let the shadow of war eclipse its beauty. But sometimes—in the most pedestrian things, the most unexpected ways—Armin would see Eren reach for that old dream of theirs with desperate hands. He wanted to believe in it. Slowly, surely, Armin was sure he could help him to believe. 

“Yeah,” Eren said softly, “I like it too.”

Such a gentle confession, simple as it was, flooded Armin with warm hope. _There’s so much more to this world_ , he wanted to say. _So much, and I want to see as much as I can with you. Just trust me. Haven’t you always trusted me?_  
  
  
  
  
It was too early. There was no light sieving through the canvas, no birdsong. Exactly what woke him, Armin couldn’t say, but as he drifted from sleep he was aware of some strange atmosphere. An oddness in his bones, something within him knocked loose. He was warm, warmer than he should have been on a night like this, in a flimsy bedroll. The air felt thick in his mouth, his clothes too heavy.

There was heat rising in his blood. Shivering, syrupy. Armin could feel its liquid pull in his veins. His stomach was turning but he did not feel unwell. Feverish, maybe, but not sickly. As he shifted on his bedding, he cringed at the clammy sensation of his own skin. And then, secondly, at the press of his erection at his thigh. It wasn’t all that unusual, some dream coaxing this reaction into the waking world. It was impossible to recall what it was he had dreamt. 

He lay there, still as he could manage. Normally such a problem could be willed away; Armin had plenty of mental images in his repertoire that were as effective as a bucket of ice water. Soldiers relieving themselves in the barracks had not been uncommon—the tell-tale rustle of sheets easy enough to ignore—but in such proximity to Eren, just the two of them alone… It felt deeply inappropriate, and more so now that Armin recognised his own feelings. He might not have been able to remember the dream, but Armin was certain of its key player. Eren made frequent appearances.

God, he couldn’t think. It was a persistent heat, languid but not unpleasant. There was a smell in the air—familiar, pervasive—that made thinking especially difficult. He grasped for it, trying to determine its origin. An organic smell. It stirred his arousal when he took a breath of it. Yes, it was a human's scent, as though Armin had pressed his face against someone’s bloodwarm throat and inhaled deep. His groin ached, and his insides too, like a sore tooth. The curious sense that if he could just pull it out of himself, he would feel better. 

Armin lifted the blanket away. The stale air provided little relief. He flipped the pillow and turned on to his other side, but that bare movement, too, was stimulating. Even when his hormones had been at their teenaged peak, Armin had never been so affected. It was inexplicable, unnerving. But as he tried to reach for that panic, it slipped away. _It’s not important_ , a part of his mind seemed to say, and thus—it wasn’t. 

Armin closed his eyes. The smell that tickled at the edge of his memory was growing stronger now. It filled his head so thickly he could almost taste it, and how badly he wanted to know where it came from, just to satisfy that burning question. He was so close to remembering. He _knew_ what it was, and the stronger it became the more certain he was that he knew, glancing against that realisation again and again.

“Armin?”

Panic rushed through him with awful clarity. Armin jolted so suddenly, and then seized up so tightly, that his abdomen cramped. He was facing the canvas, but Eren’s presence, now that he’d made himself known, was so conspicuous that feigning sleep was impossible. Eren was magnetic, anyway; Armin turned his head enough that he could look at him. There, sat in a crouch on the floor of the tent, near enough to touch. Eren.

And just as suddenly, Armin knew. The answer so obvious that it felt absurd he hadn’t recognised it before now. That irresistible smell, the one that eroded his senses, that clutched at his throat. It _was_ Eren. 

“Are you okay?” Eren said, watching him. His eyes were nearly black in the dark. 

Armin was afraid to open his mouth. He had never noticed Eren’s scent before, not like this. Never so keenly that it could knot his insides with such anticipation. It felt like he was hardly in control of his own body. Now that he had recognised the smell, the urge to reach for Eren—to press in against him, to get as close as he could bear—overwhelmed all logical thought. 

Armin took a deep and shuddering breath. He hoped Eren didn’t notice.

“Yeah,” he said. Again, shakily, the need in his voice so obvious to Armin’s own ears that his face burned. He steadied himself, struggling to think through the fog. “I’m okay. I just need some fresh air, I think.”

Escaping now seemed like a better option that staying put. Safer. With Eren so close, and Armin’s mind coursing like a wild current, it felt like the only way to avoid whatever it was that roared in his blood. Some inevitable thing, at once animal and alien, that frightened and thrilled him. If he were quick, then perhaps Eren would have the tact not to follow. Damn it. Damn it, he should have left the tent when he first woke. Armin sat upright, grateful for the lowlight, and made for the opening.

Eren’s hand snatched his wrist. His grip was hot, hot even to Armin’s own feverish skin, and at the edge of painful. 

“Don’t go,” Eren said. His voice was low, and hoarse, and there was something else in it that stirred an ancient memory from the depths of Armin’s mind. “You can’t go.”

He opened his mouth to say otherwise, or maybe he didn’t. Armin’s thoughts surfaced and sank bank, lost to the waters. Blank but for this terrible hunger. He had wanted Eren for so long; why now did it become unbearable? Armin could not blame circumstance. They had often shared sleeping quarters—they had shared cots, for god’s sake. The cramped space of the tent was nothing new. Armin had had no alcohol to excuse himself, and though he felt so hot that his bones might melt, he did not feel sick.

Instead, Armin said, “Okay.”

Just that. And he let Eren pull him back, down again to kneel on his bedroll. Eren moved as if he was afraid to touch him. Timid, his hands trembling. He released Armin’s wrist and touched his face; his palm, slid to the curve of Armin’s cheek, turning his head just enough that Eren could look him full in the face.

Eren was devastating this close. The look of him, the scent of him, filling Armin to the brim.

The kiss was unexpected. Even as Armin felt himself hoping for it, his breath catching, he shook when Eren’s thumb traced his bottom lip. His eyes were like the sea at high tide. And then, his mouth was on Armin’s own—soft at first, then desperate, Eren’s fingers moving to the nape of his neck to tug at the short hairs there. The pleasant teasing pain made Armin hiss. The noise of it, of their kissing, Eren’s breathing when they broke apart—even the rustling sheets—stoked that mindless seething heat.

The fear was gone. The urge to hide, to escape, vanishing without a trace; it seemed absurd that Armin had even considered it in the first place. Not with this, with Eren—such a perfect and unalterable thing, in that moment more right than anything had ever been right in Armin’s short life. He loved Eren, and he wanted him, and Eren wanted him too. It could be that simple, couldn’t it?

Eren tore at the front of his shirt, though after the first few buttons he grew sick of his fumbling fingers. He grabbed the hem and Armin raised his arms, the reaction innate, so Eren could lift it over his head. Even just the idea of hands on him, the promise of skin on skin, was electrifying. 

“You always wear these fussy pyjamas,” Eren said with fond frustration. He was struggling to free Armin’s wrists from the buttoned cuffs. It made Armin laugh, taken by the tenderness of it.

“They’re perfectly ordinary. Mikasa wears the same kind,” Armin said. The laugh was still in his voice, and it was strange and wonderful, that same fond frustration mirrored back.

He went to help Eren out of his own clothes, but they were a much simpler affair. Eren lifted the loose top over his head with ease and tossed it aside.

The sight of his naked torso was not new—just that morning, Armin had glimpsed Eren as he’d changed—but now it made his mouth go dry. The glory of it, the solid muscle of Eren’s shoulders and chest flexing as he stripped. It wasn’t that Armin had not noticed Eren’s body before. The gradual transformation from boy to man, as natural and as curious as a sapling from a seed, and a tree from a sapling. It was just that it had never felt quite so significant as it did now.

There was a saying like that. Someone had said it to him in passing, and it had lingered in Armin’s mind and mouth—a senior corpsman, perhaps, or his grandfather, or a Marleyan prisoner. _What fills the eye, fills the heart_. Armin had never been one for such mawkishness. But looking at Eren now, nothing had ever rung so true.

He let his hands move where his gaze moved. His fingers slid up Eren’s firm stomach, awed at the strength beneath his skin, the way the muscles shifted under his palm. Pure restrained power. Armin could hardly believe the sight of his own hand there, pale at Eren’s chest. And then, when he lifted his gaze, he found Eren watching him. Eyes half-lidded, dark with obvious desire. It sent a wicked thrill down his spine.

It was easy—easy as breathing, as counting, as anything—to push Eren down on the bedroll. Eren went willingly, watching him with that same intent look. Armin had had dreams like this, hadn’t he? Sometimes just in flashes, senseless moments, the fading impression of Eren’s flesh beneath his fingernails, or his flesh beneath Eren’s. Armin lowered his head to the slope of Eren’s collar. How could someone smell so good? How had Armin never noticed before? He opened his mouth against his skin, tasting salt. There was a murmur of appreciation from above. With how he was laid over him now, he could feel Eren’s erection straining against his shorts, pushing up against Armin’s thigh. The heat of it—his cock a stiff bar through the fabric—scrambled his thoughts. A dream could be nothing like this. Not even close. 

Armin left a shining trail as he moved down Eren’s body. Lathed his tongue across his nipples, down the dip in the centre of his abs. Then, ducking his head, he sucked at Eren’s clothed erection. Clumsy but keenly, the cotton going hot and damp in his mouth. Eren let out a startled gasp and grabbed at his hair. Not pushing, not pulling; just holding him there.

Armin glanced upwards. He had never seen such a look on Eren’s face, a bright and broken expression, his jaw slack. His breathing, so laboured. 

“Careful,” Eren said, with visible effort. “I… Not yet. Come lie here.”

There was a moment of adjustment, a little awkward in the limited space, before Armin was settled next to him. Eren’s fingers teased at the waist of his trousers, though not for long; in short order he pushed them down past Armin’s knees and then off completely. But Armin didn’t feel exposed, not in the warm sanctuary of the tent, with Eren’s hands on him. 

“Turn over,” Eren said. It made Armin pause—he did not want to look away from Eren’s face, not now his gaze had its hooks in him—but Eren nudged his hip. Gentle but insistent. “It’s alright. Go on.”

Armin rolled on to his other side. Facing away from him now was sobering, almost. It magnified every sound and sensation: his own blood in his ears, the noise of Eren shimmying out of his shorts and then lying parallel, the heat of his groin as it pushed at the back of Armin’s thighs. There was a rush of pure animal exhilaration, more intense than Armin could have thought possible.

“Here,” Eren said, a little shakily. One hand slid down his waist, to the top of his leg, and then in between them pressed together. His palm was warm and broad against the flat muscle of Armin's inner thigh, his thumb tracing the crease of it over and over. He shivered at such deliberate attention.

“Eren,” Armin whispered, almost without meaning to. More urgent than he’d meant, too raw, too needy. It should’ve embarrassed him, but Armin couldn’t find it in himself. 

Eren’s answer was to kiss at his throat, at the top of his spine. The hand between his legs was replaced by a blunt, more obvious heat. Eren’s cock pushed between his thighs. There was no resistance with Armin’s sweat-slick skin; Eren rocked against him, smoothly, slowly, fucking into the tight cradle of his thighs. The head of his cock pushed at the underside of Armin’s own with every upthrust, just barely, a teasing touch. 

“Fuck,” Armin whispered, pushing back against his weight. Eren’s hand was at his chest now, teasing his nipples to hardness. Armin had never been sensitive there before, but Eren’s persistent touch sent pleasure prickling under his skin. It was so intimate, so gentle, the weathered satin of his fingertips gliding back and forth, again and again.

Eren let out a deep, reverberating groan. He rutted against him, up into that slippery heat. Armin was able to bite back his helpless moan when Eren’s hand finally closed around his aching cock, but the clenching of his thighs was involuntary. It jarred a hoarse cry from Eren’s throat. So many sounds that Armin could never have dreamed up, and now he would probably never dream without them.

“Is this okay?” Eren asked, his mouth at Armin’s ear. He stroked him with long, lazy pulls, as if he could drag the orgasm out of him. It made it very difficult for Armin to organise his thoughts into coherent words; to find the strength to speak them took longer still. 

“Yeah… Yes. _Oh_. Eren, I’m…” Armin stopped, forced to by the sudden twist of Eren’s hand around his cock, a spark of bright painful pleasure shocking him silent. The climax blindsided him, a breathless gasping release that wrenched at Armin’s insides and made his vision swim. 

Eren continued to touch him in time with his own steady thrusts, two fingers nudging beneath the head of his cock. It still felt good, the pain of it felt _good_ , and Armin could only squirm and arch and whimper in his grip. It wasn’t much longer before he felt Eren seize up behind him, his cock pulsing between his thighs. It was all so hot and slick that it made Armin feel dizzy, dizzy and needful, because despite everything he wanted more. He wasn’t done yet; he didn’t want to be done. Not with his scent and Eren’s still so thick in the air. 

As Eren shifted back, he pulled at Armin’s shoulder. He went easily, down on to his back, boneless with the afterglow. Eren stared at his face. 

Armin could only blink and blush. Finally, after a long unbroken moment with Eren’s gaze fixed on his, Armin said, “What is it? Are you okay?”

“Sorry. Yeah. I just… I just wanted to look at you.”

Such a gutting thing to say. It split him open. Even like this, feeling the slick spread of his own come and Eren’s between his thighs—what really got to him was Eren’s voice, and his expression, more tender and more reverent than it had any reason to be. Armin’s pulse raced with foolish feeling.

There was another pause, though this one more intent. It was difficult to make out Eren’s expression with his hair—longer now—falling over his face. Armin resisted the urge to tuck it out of the way, until there came the stunned realisation: he didn’t have to. He could touch Eren however he pleased. How unbelievably easy it was to lift his hand to Eren’s face, to push his hair back and to follow the line of his jaw, up to the sweet shell curve of his ear.

Eren’s own hand went to his wrist, holding him there. He leaned his cheek into Armin’s palm. His speeding pulse, his racing blood, the terrific and terrible joy of Eren’s body so near to his own. Armin knew with perfect clarity what he wanted.

He turned a little, just enough, lifting his legs so he could settle them snugly either side of Eren’s hips. Easier to convey his intent this way than to fumble the words. Eren had always understood him without the need to speak them anyway.

Eren inched forward. One palm settled against Armin's left knee, pushing his thigh flat against the floor; the other Armin kept against his waist. Eren slipped his hands between his thighs again, smearing his skin with come, pushing some of it in against him. The thought and the feel of it made Armin burn like a flame. But the embarrassment became irrelevant as Eren pushed against him more deliberately, two fingers penetrating him at once. Armin was so lax in the aftermath of his orgasm that it was an easy slide. Still, Eren was careful to be slow, fingering him deep and thorough, one finger nudging up at something that made his thighs quake, his balls tighten.

“In my… my pack,” Armin said, “there’s hand salve.”

Eren paused. “Right,” he said, and he blushed as if he hadn’t already been fingering Armin up to the knuckle. “Right. I’ll get it.”

It gave Armin a moment to breathe. He let his head drop back, awash with hot and cold sensations. Even that short distance from Eren, for those few seconds, riled him. _Come back_ , he wanted to say, which was ridiculous because Eren hadn’t gone anywhere. He was gripped by such startling need, more intense than it had ever been. _Come back_ , he thought, near frantic now. _I need you._

Somewhere behind him, Armin heard a murmur of triumph. The flood of relief as Eren settled back into place was just as startling, though blessedly less desperate. Eren held the jar aloft in his hand.

The smile that rose on to Armin’s face was pure reflex. “Well done,” he teased. “You found it.”

Eren let out a little huff. But he was smiling, too. “It was right in the bottom of your bag, you know. Nothing’s ever so easy as you make it sound.” There was the noise of the lid being unscrewed. Armin closed his eyes, expectant, but still he jumped at the warm press of Eren’s oiled fingers. 

He didn’t hesitate now—three fingers at once pushed up into Armin, stretching and stroking him. Eren’s rough enthusiasm was only more arousing. Even then, it wasn’t enough. Deep within, that frantic hollow ache ate a hole through his stomach. Armin could feel his cock growing thick and firm again with Eren’s unrelenting, impatient touch.

“I’m ready,” Armin said. Urgent, eager, and again there was no shame to match it. 

Eren’s gaze flicked up to his face. For a moment Armin was afraid that he would ask if he was sure, because even that minor delay would be torture, but no—Eren trusted him, that he knew himself—and he withdrew his hand, moving it once again to pin Armin’s knee flat to the ground. The other leg, he lifted up over his shoulder. He was close, and so warm, and closer still as he inched forward. 

Armin felt hardness and heat, and then that long, slow burn as Eren pushed inside. Gentle, gentle as he could manage with his shaking hands and his breathing, coming so short and shallow now. Armin choked on his moan, arching up, grinding back, the blunt pressure so perfect with how hungry he had been for it.

Finally—inch by inch, moment by moment—he felt Eren’s hips flush against him. Armin could only lie there, trembling, nothing left of him now but the blind sense of his own body—Eren inside him so deep, and so hot and huge-feeling, and the expansive spread of his hands as he held his legs aloft. The thought made his cock twitch, and he had to fight the urge to come so early, and when he had already come that night once already. God, was this what Eren could do to him? Just one warm evening in a ridge tent and the sweet-smoke scent of him, and Armin was a helpless wreck.

Eren made a ragged sound. “I… Fuck, Armin,” he said, his voice shivering with awe. “It’s, it’s—fuck.” He let out a single high laugh. “Sorry. I just… I can’t think.”

It was admirable that he could manage sentences quite so complete as that, Armin thought. He wasn’t sure he could breathe properly, never mind speak. But this, _this_ he could do—and he wrapped his legs around Eren’s waist, pulling him—pinning him—impossibly close. 

It was enough. Eren understood. His eyes went wide, then narrow, and there was a gorgeous glassy light in them that went straight to Armin’s cock. He rocked against him, shallow nudging thrusts that grew fast, fast and deep, and Armin shoved his hand down between them to touch himself. Eren was fucking him so hard he couldn’t think, but he fisted his cock in a grip so tight it hurt, twisting against the bedroll that was useless beneath them. Armin could feel the filmy canvas of the tent's floor at the small of his back as Eren drove him against it. 

Eren was pressed completely over him, the satin-slide of hot skin against skin, his breath burning Armin's throat. Close, now, and he wanted to say it—he wanted Eren to know, it felt important—but as Armin felt the weight of the words in his mouth, Eren sunk his teeth into the soft hollow where his collar met his shoulder. Not so hard to bleed, but enough, that painful pressure driving a spike into Armin’s brain and twisting his insides. Armin’s hand went slack as he came, the coursing mindless rush of his orgasm so intense that for five full seconds he couldn’t see. The sound it ripped from him was something animal, and then his breath stole away completely as Eren fucked him through it, rutting into him like it was his last and most desperate moment. 

Time dissolved. Armin was aware—just barely, just enough—of Eren’s groan, his stuttering hips going still as he pulsed inside him, releasing so hot and slick and easy. Natural, instinctive. Even half-mindless, Armin marvelled at how long it had taken them to reach this point when now it felt so inevitable. A fate branded on to the pale slate of his soul. 

There was the sense of Eren lying next to him at the edges of his consciousness. Solid, an anchor in this faint and fading world. Armin wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to try and offer up what little he had left in him. But he was so tired, and that wild heat had finally burned itself out to a satisfied warmth. Armin surrendered himself to sleep.


	3. neap tide

Cold fear woke him. Inexplicable, at first, because there was no nightmare snapping at his heels, his eyelids. An absent, hollowing fear—more real than that rising from a dream. Eren sat upright. His neck twinged, sore from the awkward way he was laid out. Bedrolls were hardly the most comfortable, but the unforgiving floor of the tent was worse. 

Eren breathed deeply. The tent was stifling. He could smell himself and Armin still in the air, and that realisation made him blush. Though not a moment later, the colour drained from his face. 

Armin was not in the tent. His bedroll—the rumpled mess of it—was empty, as was Eren’s own. Armin’s pack was there still at the canvas’ edge, but his pyjamas were gone from where Eren had thrown them. The fear struck him with new power, but there was some rational relief alongside it. If Armin had chosen to get dressed—and back into his pyjamas, of all things—then he likely wasn’t in any danger. He had taken his boots, too, and despite the creeping unease, the mental image made Eren smile. Fussy button-up nightshirt and hardy trekking boots. Armin could pull it off. 

Of course, that he had chosen to leave was concerning for a very different reason. 

Eren tore through his pack for his clothes from yesterday. Putting on anything fresh before he’d had the chance to wash would normally not bother him all that much, but last night had left its mark a little too obviously. Not that it was unpleasant; Eren felt only deep satisfaction when he took in the mingled scent of their coupling. But right now, his prevailing emotion was an anxious one. 

Last night. It was early morning now, and so they must have only slept a few hours. But still he could not believe how clear it was in his memory, his fingertips tingling with remembered sensation. Something had driven him to Armin’s bedside at that unknown hour, something wild and honest, an instinctive urge. Eren had made no attempt to fight it. On the contrary, it had felt right—good, even—to give in to it. In that moment, with how Armin had looked at him, that searing studying gaze made strange, it had made more sense than most everything else in Eren’s life.

The flimsy hope that Armin would be just outside was torn away as Eren slipped through the canvas. Nothing. The firepit was grey and cold. As Eren kicked the top from the hillock of ash, he saw that some embers still glowed beneath its inert surface, even so many hours later. He bent to feel the bare heat rising from them with the back of his hand. The nested remnants of the fire, smouldering so quietly that you would never think it was there. Not unless you looked for it. Not until it flared to life once more, its cold burning suddenly bright enough to touch the sky.  
  
  
  
  
You could have given Eren three guesses as to where Armin was, and he would have got it in one. Easily. That Armin had taken his boots provided some clue anyway. He might not have known the area quite so well as Armin, but Eren remembered the way to the ocean. And even if he hadn’t, he could sense its pull on the air; it didn’t take long, a gentle downhill journey until the smell of salt really smacked him in the face. He spotted Armin’s shape out in the water before he came upon the edge of the beach. He wasn’t too far out, and otherwise the horizon was empty but for his narrow silhouette. 

Eren came to a stop at the tideline. Seafoam left a gauzy scrim beneath his feet, but the waves never rose high enough to touch him. It was a cool morning; the wet sand felt like compacted snow. The water must have been freezing.

“Armin?” he called. 

He didn’t mean to sound so lost, so small. But his voice carried over the wind and the waves nonetheless, and Armin whipped around to face him. His expression was unreadable, standing waist-deep in the water. Eren glanced across the beach and saw Armin’s clothes discarded in a heap by the surf. Sometimes the waves nearly lapped at them. Eren wanted to say something, or to go and pick them up, but if Armin had left them there it was unlikely he cared that they got damp. He’d had enough sense of mind to leave his boots further up the shore, dropped askew and well apart from one another, as though Armin had kicked them off in his rush to the water. 

“Hey,” Armin said. His voice was an uneven as Eren’s, which was comforting and distressing all at once. 

Eren swallowed. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. “What are you doing out there?”

A lame question. It had to be better than nothing, though, and certainly better than turning to walk back the way he came. He had let this emotion digest too long, Eren knew. If he ran from it now there would be no settling it.

Armin shrugged, a boneless slumping of his shoulders. “… Fresh air. I needed to cool down, I think. _To_ think.”

Eren wanted to grin at the double-meaning, but Armin’s complicated expression—sad, fraying, pale—turned him inside out. The evidence of last night was there still: a raw and mottled bruise against the smooth skin of Armin’s throat. It wouldn’t last. Armin’s healing would make short work of it, even if he didn’t concentrate his power to do so. But looking at it—imagining Armin lifting a hand to touch the mark, remembering Eren’s mouth there—stirred the memory in him once again. It would feel good to be out there, with Armin, he thought. Skin against skin, the shock of slick warmth in chilly waters.

“… Can I join you?”

He was prepared for Armin to say no. Maybe he would want space, or time, and Eren would have willingly given him both for however long he needed them. He would go all the way to Mitras in a heartbeat if that was what Armin asked for. But fear of that _no_ still chewed at him.

Something softened in Armin’s eyes.

“Of course,” he said, finally, wearily. He lifted his arms from his sides, disturbing the water a little as he did so. The fleeting smile on his face—a half-smile, the slightest lifting of one corner of his mouth—was mostly from amusement. “It’s the ocean. There’s plenty of space.”

 _Unlike that tent_. Eren's ears warmed with the thought. _Unlike your bedroll._

Eren had not bothered to pull on a shirt, only his trousers. Stripping them off felt too deliberate now, each and every action weighted with this new context. And so he waded out with them still on. It made walking through the water, waves gentle though they were, that little bit more difficult. Then, as he approached, Eren paused. How close would be too close? What was normal for them? It felt like a ridiculous consideration after what had happened. Eren had never had to wonder about these things before. Such boundaries (or lack of them) had been innate, unquestionable: they had known each other for too long, and too well, to operate on anything but instinct. 

Though with last night, this morning—with the way Armin had gasped Eren’s name, the clench of his thighs against his own, and the dark and hungry look Armin wore as Eren took him on his back, twisting, arching, pushing back with just as much eager strength—suddenly it felt very tender, a cut that hurt only after someone else pointed out how deep it reached.

This had always been a bad habit of Eren’s. Never looking until he had already leapt, headfirst, and he would be left facing the hard dirty march through the wreckage of his choice.

They were so much closer now. Eren kept enough distance that he would barely be able touch Armin with the full extent of his reach, and even then he felt how much he _wanted_ to do that, his fingertips brushing Armin’s chest or throat or face, his answering shiver the most perfect secret. 

“Last night, was it…” It was almost unbearable to say the words, merely to consider them. Eren’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Did you not want to?”

It was such a gutting fear. Eren had no regrets himself—he had wanted Armin, and had been wanting him for so long that it had become a facet of his soul, a truth as pure and simple as thirst—and last night had only affirmed his feelings. But if Armin did not feel the same, then Eren would do anything to take it all back.

Armin was staring at him. Not with contempt, though, just some curious awed look opening up his gaze, his face. And then, he flushed. “Yes. I mean, of course. I did want to.” He turned shyly away. “I just… I hadn’t expected it. I can’t figure it out.”

Up close, Eren could see the ends of Armin’s hair were damp. Barely darker, the colour of harvested straw. His lower lip, caught between his teeth, looked shiny and raw. Eren could not help but wonder whether that was from the night before or if Armin had worried it to soreness this morning.

“What a mess,” Armin sighed at last. But damn it, damn it to hell, he was smiling, and Eren felt some tense structure within him collapse.

Suddenly it was not difficult at all to move into Armin’s space. Armin did not recoil; there was no flinching surprise on his face at Eren’s proximity. 

“It’s a good mess,” Eren said, only a little desperate. Even the bad messes could end up good if Armin was with him, and this time they were already on to a good thing. “We’re still ourselves, aren’t we? Nothing has to change, we’re just adding on to our foundation.” He tried for a smile. “Expanding our understanding, right? We’re doing that all the time, for loads of things, and this… us… I think it’s worthwhile.”

 _Worthwhile._ The word was as sweet as it was bitter, but it was honest. If Eren had only weeks left, and if Armin were willing, still he would throw himself down this path with no regrets. 

Armin must have understood what he would not say aloud; his own smile took on a sad edge as he looked down into the water. Then he turned it on Eren, and its loveliness nearly knocked him over. He was so beautiful out here. In this light, in this water, in this world—all that Armin had wanted for so long, and still wanted, even though it came with such cruel caveats. Eren had not been able to accept them that easily. He couldn’t. But Armin was hopeful where Eren struggled to be. To Armin, freedom—even if piecemeal, even this roughly hewn version of it—was still freedom.

The touch of Armin’s hands jarred Eren from his thoughts. He held Eren’s forearms, and then let his slick hands slide upwards—to his shoulders, and then around the back of Eren’s neck, where he laced his fingers together. It felt like a lover’s touch, or what Eren had imagined a lover’s touch would feel like. It just so happened that he had always imagined Armin’s hands when he did so.

“I don’t think change is such a bad thing,” Armin said, soft-like, “I think we _have_ changed. But that can be good, too.”

Armin’s eyes were searching but not analytical. His gaze drifted across Eren’s face, lingering a moment too long on his mouth before flicking back up to meet Eren’s own. He spared one hand to brush aside a lock of hair. It wasn’t anything new, not really. Armin had always touched him that way—gently, with ease, unashamed of its intimacy even with an audience. This ache was not new either. Eren had ached for him for so long that it seemed impossible that he would no longer need to. That this could a satisfied hunger, rather than a galling desperate one.

Armin spoke quietly. “The tide’s going out, now.”

Eren looked out over the sea’s shifting surface. He could read nothing from it. “How can you tell?”

“It’s a cycle. It rises and recedes twice a day. You get to know the rhythm of it.”

Eren smiled. “I should’ve figured you would know,” he said, and then, “it’s cold out here.”

This prompted a laugh from Armin, a short single huff, as though he was surprised by it. His arms went around himself, but he leaned in so his head could rest on Eren’s shoulder. Armin nodded against him. “Freezing.”

The sun was breaching the horizon. There was no heat in its thin light. Eren’s trousers were waterlogged, and Armin’s own clothes would be damp at the very least. But there was a fire back at camp that could be stirred to life, and clean clothes and field rations and a kettle for tea. With Armin, such meagre things could warm him against any cold.

**Author's Note:**

> writing this while the previous chapter came out was an interesting exercise in cognitive dissonance. 
> 
> anyway -- i hope you’re happy, jana!! but even if you’re not, i hope anyone else who reads this ~~doesn’t judge me too harshly~~ enjoyed it! thank you so much for sticking it out <3


End file.
